And the
thing which mocked him most of all was that the year had been attended
with the greatest professional successes of his life. He never heard his
plaudits sounded without a curse in his heart.
"It went mighty hard with Parkman not to be able to save Hubers," medical
men said with growing frequency as the year advanced. But there were none
of them who dreamed into what deep and vital things the cut had gone.
With his own will and his own skill he patched it up on the surface, not
the man to leave his wound exposed to other eyes. But he knew its
hopelessness too well ever to try and reach the bottom of the wound. It
was not a good, clean, straight cut such as time expects to heal. Indeed
it was not a cut at all; nothing so wholesome and reachable as that. It
was a destroying force, a thing burrowing at the springs of life, a thing
which made its way through devious paths to vital sources. Did a patched
up surface mean anything to a thing like that?
The evening of the day he had seen Georgia, and she told him of
Ernestine, he sat a long time in his office alone.
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